"Get your boots on and saddle up!" Alisal Union School District encourages its educators and administrators to take part in their Western-themed professional development game, Rodeo Alisal. The Rodeo is made up of two different games: teacher-oriented Rough Riders; and district administrator game Trail Bosses. Game missions include Tech Tools, 4Cs of Modern Learning, Personalized Professional Learning, and Pedagogical Practices. The district has also developed a Digital Citizenship mission -- we'll be incorporating some of their activities into the next level of our DigCit game...thanks for the inspiration!

"It was important to drive professional development and training in the Google Suite for Education Apps, and on conceptual models of edtech integration like the 4Cs and the SAMR model. We knew we needed to educate folks at all levels about digital citizenship, and to create a mindset of student creativity and agency while moving away from student assessment and intervention as the main function of educational technology," said Joshua Harris, AUSD's Director of Educational Technology.

The Salinas-based district is made up of twelve K-6 schools in partnership with a local charter school, and employs 400 certificated and 250 classified staff members. Since it's release in mid-October, over 150 teachers and 30 administrators have signed up to play Rodeo Alisal! AUSD celebrates game players with SWAG that's great for them and their students, like WeVideo subscriptions, Breakout EDU box sets, classroom Chromebooks, and Scholastic gift cards.

"I have seen teachers moving up their skills one activity at a time. They seem to enjoy these bite-sized pieces of PD, which they can do anytime and anywhere. People also love the competition and push themselves and their colleagues forward," said Coach Ben, and Educational TOSA.

"By going online we have not only been able to really target our areas of need in a purposeful and customized way, but we created a fun and competitive platform for teachers to gain professional development and training. We have also given them the autonomy to master these things at their own pace and in their own place, thereby modeling some of the practices and approaches we’d like them to take on. The competition between individuals and schools has also fostered a burgeoning sense of community among our players," said Harris.

Ed Tech Coach and TOSA, George Lopez notes that teachers have expressed what a wonderful platform this is for learning new skills at their own pace. The many options for self-paced learning embedded in the platform truly meet the needs of the different types of learners.

As an educator, I promise to be a lifelong learner. So, I’m always searching for PDs, training, and/or PLN. The Rodeo Alisal curates personalized PD, which not only saves me time, but also helps me to grow and learn professionally.